Category Archives: Procrastination

Do you struggle with reaching your goals? The reality is that most people do struggle. When you set goals for yourself, you undoubtedly have the very best of intentions. You want to succeed with your goals and reap the many benefits that come with making successful and important changes in your life. However, there is something that you may fail to account for in your goal planning i.e. life itself. Just when you are ready to take the necessary actions and make those vital changes; life gets in the way and you are unable to remain focused on your goals. If you cannot remain focused on your goals, you will lose momentum and fail to make the progress you desire. This soon leads to a loss of confidence and motivation.

Because procrastination is such a common problem, especially for students, we are presenting a series of articles that explore the issue in depth. This week, we look at the crucial importance of prioritization in breaking the bad habit.

In a way, priorities are everything. How our heart/mind weights our likes and dislikes, wants and needs, values and goals — these rankings, developed over a lifetime, are like the software code which runs under the conscious surface of our thoughts, guiding our decisions and actions.

Contentedly eating a malted at the baseball game because you prioritize joy and sugar? That will change in a jiffy if a line drive comes screaming at your head at 100 mph; your most basic survival programming will have you drop that treat, no problem, in order to better duck out of the way or put up your hands to try and catch it.Continue reading →

Because procrastination is such a common problem, especially for students, we are presenting a series of articles that explore the issue in depth. This week, we look at some of the causes of severe procrastination and what interventions are available.

Christopher Scheer is a learning specialist at Touro University California.

There is likely no adult on earth who has not avoided, at least momentarily, doing something they know they should do, and could thus be called a procrastinator. Many generally successful people like to make self-deprecating jokes about what “terrible procrastinators” they are. Yet, for severe procrastinators, this recurring behavior is often no joke.

“Chronic procrastination can have high costs,” writes Michael Neenan of London’s Centre for Stress Management.

Because procrastination is such a common problem, especially for students, we are presenting a series of articles that explore the issue in depth. This week, we investigate how difficult it can be to find a tipping point in order to move into action.

Christopher Scheer is a learning specialist at Touro University California.

The concept of a tipping point originates in physics, where adding a small amount of weight to a balanced object will suddenly and completely topple it. And while there are still raging debates and much research to be done about just how the brain makes decisions, it is generally uncontroversial that there is, metaphorically, a tipping point at which motivational forces push us past inertia and into action.

Because procrastination is such a common problem, especially for students, we are presenting a series of articles that explore the issue in depth. This week, we examine why the habit of avoidance can be so resistant to well-meaning efforts to change.

Christopher Scheer is a learning specialist at Touro University California.

Usually, when a person seeks relief from problems caused by procrastination, well-meaning and helpful people offer suggestions designed to replace one’s self-destructive habits with constructive ones. These might include:

Careful daily schedule construction where time is blocked off in reasonable increments and scheduled breaks, and keeping to the schedule is a top priority.

Using to-do lists or other task management organizational systems to break large projects or jobs into smaller, less onerous sub-tasks. Continue reading →

Because procrastination is such a common problem, especially for students, we are presenting a series of articles that explore the issue in depth. (For the first in the series, click here.) This week, we examine the way procrastinators rationalize poor choices.

Christopher Scheer is a learning specialist at Touro University California.

For a human, every dawn brings the same personality test. Is she an “early bird” who bounds out of bed to greet the day, or a “night owl” who blinks at first light like a groggy bear waking from hibernation?

If the latter, she is far more likely to employ that cruel self-torture device, the snooze button, a perfect technological expression of the increasingly prevalent problem of procrastination.